Ennio Morricone's Improvisation Legacy Explored at Nuova Consonanza Conference

A conference titled 'A partire da un’intesa' was held at the Macro museum in Rome from December 14 to 16, 2017, organized by the Associazione Nuova Consonanza. The event focused on the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, a collective of composer-improvisers active since the 1960s, and on collective improvisation more broadly. Ennio Morricone, a former member, participated in a roundtable with other surviving members including John Heineman, Antonello Neri, Giovanni Piazza, Jesús Villa-Rojo, and Walter Branchi. The conference examined the group's radical approach to free improvisation, which rejected traditional musical forms and notation in favor of indeterminate, real-time decision-making. The group's ideology, articulated by Franco Evangelisti, aimed at a 'degree zero' of music, breaking from idiomatic improvisation like jazz or baroque. The article also highlights Morricone's soundtrack for Elio Petri's film 'La proprietà non è più un furto' (released by Goodfellas), which features noise, distorted violins, and small improvisations, contrasting with his later work. The conference assessed what remains of this experimental legacy, with scholars arguing its influence persists despite being largely anecdotal.